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David Watt Ian Campbell

デイビッド・ワット・イアン・キャンベル

Deibiddo Watto Ian Kyanberu

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1915-07-16 （Ellerslie Station, near Adelong, New South Wales）
Died
1979-07-29 （Royal Canberra Hospital） age 64
Nationality
Australian
Languages
English
Religion
Anglican
Residence History
Adelong, New South Wales → Parramatta, New South Wales → Cambridge, England → Wells Station, near Harrison, Australian Capital Territory → Palerang, near Bungendore, New South Wales → Queanbeyan, New South Wales → Sydney, New South Wales

Career

Occupations
Poet, Grazier, Rugby union player, RAAF pilot, Anthology editor
Active Years
1943-1979
Influenced By
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Patrick White
Influenced
Young Australian poets

Education

The King's School, Parramatta
Period: 1930-1935
Year of Graduation: 1935
Country: Australia
High school
Jesus College, Cambridge
Faculty of English
Degree: Bachelor of Arts
Period: 1935-1937
Year of Graduation: 1937
Country: United Kingdom

Awards

Grace Leven Prize for Poetry
1968
Work: Selected Poems 1942–1968
Result: winner
Henry Lawson Australian Arts award
1970
Result: winner
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
1980
Work: The Man in the Honeysuckle
Result: winner
Distinguished Flying Cross
1944
Category: 軍功
Organization: Royal Air Force
Result: 受章

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Speak with the Sun

1949 Poetry collection

Early poems primarily dealing with war

War

The Miracle of Mullion Hill

1956 Poetry collection

Poems about rural life at Wells Station

Rural lifeNature

Selected Poems 1942–1968

1968 Poetry collection

Selected poems, winner of Grace Leven Prize

NatureWarLove

The Man in the Honeysuckle

1979 Poetry collection

Late poetry collection, posthumous Kenneth Slessor Prize

Nature

Bibliography

  • Men in Green
  • Speak with the Sun
  • The Miracle of Mullion Hill
  • Poems
  • Selected Poems 1942–1968
  • The Branch of Dodona and Other Poems: 1969–1970
  • Starting from Central Station: A Sequence of Poems
  • Devil's Rock and Other Poems 1970–1972
  • Moscow Trefoil
  • Deaths and Pretty Cousins
  • The History of Australia
  • Encounters
  • Words with a Black Orpington
  • Selected Poems
  • The Man in the Honeysuckle
  • Seven Russian Poets: Imitations
  • Hardening of the Light: Selected Poems
  • Flame and Shadow: Selected Stories
  • Evening Under Lamplight: Selected Stories

Translations by Author

  • Moscow Trefoil: poems from the Russian of Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam
  • Seven Russian Poets: Imitations

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Use of European and Asian (haiku) poetic formsLearned but not didactic, harmonious but not bland, vigorous but finely tuned
Recurring Motifs
Contemplative experience of the Monaro plainsRealities of the countrysideAcute observations of the natural world

Health

  • Cancer
    1979
    Cause of death

Legacy

Renowned Australian poet for lyrical poetry about love, war, and Australian rural life. Called the poet of the Monaro, influenced by his life as a grazier. Honored by Mullion Park in Canberra with poem excerpts. David Campbell Award named in his honor.

Archives

  • National Library of Australia

In Popular Culture

  • Excerpts from his poems embedded in Mullion Park, Canberra

Quotes

  • For now the sharp leaves On the tree are still And the great blond paddocks Come down from the hill.
    Source: Collected Poems (1989)
  • See how these autumn days begin With spider-webs against the sun, And frozen shadows, fiery cocks, And starlings riding sheep-backs.
    Source: Poems (1962)

Trivia

  • Represented England in two rugby union test matches
  • Earned a Cambridge Blue in rugby
  • Served in RAAF in WWII, wounded in New Guinea, awarded DFC for bombing missions from Darwin
  • Close friends with poets Douglas Stewart, A. D. Hope, and writers Manning Clark, Patrick White
  • Avid fisherman, golfer, polo player, painter